4 teams snag North American Challengers 2 berth

After another hard-fought week of open qualifiers, the second in a long series of them over the course of the year, the four teams who will join last week’s VCT 2021 - Stage 1 - North America - Challengers 1 top four in VCT 2021 - Stage 1 - North America - Challengers 2 have been decided.

The participants in Challengers 2 are:

From Challengers 1:

Sentinels Immortals Luminosity XSET

From Challengers 2 Open Qualifier:

100 Thieves FaZe Clan Gen.G Envy

After being upset by Carpe Noctem the last open qualifier, 100 Thieves absolutely stormed through their revenge tour this time around with Nicholas "nitr0" Cannella in the lineup. They didn’t drop a map all throughout the qualifiers and decimated NYFU 13-2 and 13-10 to ease their way through.

Peter "Asuna" Mazuryk was absolutely on fire, putting out 323 ACS on Reyna and leading the team to the confident victory. Challengers 2 is beginning to look stacked with an in-form 100 Thieves attending.

FaZe Clan were the second team to punch their ticket after a messy 2-1 affair with Built By Gamers. It was an uncharacteristically off series from the Jett maniac Andrej "babybay" Francisty, but players such as Jimmy "Marved" Nguyen managed to pick up the slack to get FaZe over the finish line. Things looked very promising for BBG, but their inability to win aim duels eventually cost them the series.

TSM and Gen.G Esports played in the third qualifier match. An incredibly tense and tight game, Gen.G showed some big playstyle changes by coming out of the gate aggressive, and things worked out. Shawn "Shawn" O'Riley was his usual deadly self and Danny "HUYNH" Huynh played much better than we’ve seen him in the past. Matthew "WARDELL" Yu couldn’t quite carry TSM to the win, and it went to Gen.G 2-1.

Renegades, in their first outing with new signing Roy "StrongLegs" Ahad, began Ascent well in their match against ENVY, but not too much more would go well for them after that. Renegades won every single pistol round in the series, but repeatedly failed to secure rifle rounds, and ended up losing both Ascent and Split, 13-7 and. The 2-0 sent Envy back to the closed qualifier.

Challengers 2 is shaping up to be incredible, with an absolutely stacked lineup of the best teams in North America. With their qualification, each of these teams has at least secured a berth in VCT 2021 - Stage 1 - North America - Challengers 3, with the top four teams progressing straight to VCT 2021 - Stage 1 - North America Masters. Challengers 2 kicks off on February 18th, watch on www.twitch.tv/nerdstgamers and follow all the action with THESPIKE.GG!